DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hmm, I think it's time we started checking up on everyone else, don't you?
THREE
"Any luck yet?" Lucas asked dismally.
"I can't get through to either of them," Professor Rowan replied with a heavy sigh. He sat down on the sofa, ran a hand over his snow-like hair and threw his phone down onto the seat beside him.
They were not at Lake Verity anymore, nor were they at the research centre. They had retreated to the professor's house. Things had not gone well at the lake. Although they'd arrived well in time – before Team Galactic themselves, in fact – Lucas had been defeated by a young redhead of a commander, and there had been too many Grunts for the professor to deal with, although he'd given a few of them a clip around the ear and some harsh words. But insofar as they'd intended to protect Mesprit, they'd failed abysmally.
Lucas stood up for the sake of wandering over to the window; he was feeling restless. "I don't get it," he said, speaking to his faint reflection in the glass.
"Well, I did send Barry to Lake Acuity," the professor said. Was that a hint of regret in his voice? "I should have anticipated that he would be unreachable. There really is nothing up there. No phone signal. Someone with a bit of forethought might have travelled on to Snowpoint City to get in touch with us from there – "
"But Dawn...!" Lucas began.
"Yes, I didn't think Lake Valor was so remote that her phone would cease to work."
"Exactly. I'm worried."
"As am I," Rowan confessed. "But let us hope that they enjoyed more success than we did, and that they're simply slow to communicate it."
*****
Team Galactic's helicopters were very roomy, but Jupiter hated overcrowding. It made her feel claustrophobic. The chopper's six seats were filled – including, of course, the two pilots at the front, and Jupiter herself just behind them. At the back of the helicopter, two Grunts sat on the floor beside a cage that held a very weakened, semi-conscious Uxie. But Jupiter had brought a twenty-strong band with her. The rest were probably still trying to dislodge their vans from the snow near Lake Acuity. The commander smiled in the comfort of her chair and she began to think aloud about the day's events.
"I do remember that girl," she murmured, gazing out of the window. "She was definitely the one who came to Eterna City. As I recall, she defeated me."
Her team knew that tone of voice all too well, and the pair sitting behind her exchanged worried glances. They'd seen what Jupiter had made Uxie do at the lakeside. Was that their commander's idea of revenge? They'd always known that it was a bad idea to make Jupiter angry, but erasing someone's memory was something else entirely.
"It's such a shame," Jupiter continued. She sounded regretful now, but it could have been pretence. "She was a good trainer. She could have been an asset."
For the sake of making conversation, one of the pilots glanced over his shoulder. "Do you wish that you'd recruited her, Commander?"
"No, no," Jupiter replied with a wave of her hand, although she didn't sound very sure. "She was much too young. And yet, very strong for her age." She laughed. "But I doubt she'll be a threat to us now, and that friend of hers had too much confidence for his skill level. I don't think we'll be seeing either of them again."
"Commander Jupiter, we've just received word from Lake Verity. Their mission was a success."
"Really? I'm surprised. So, Mars isn't as useless as I thought."
Jupiter had never made a secret of how much she disliked the other female commander. She didn't care if it made her look like she was jealous. She wasn't. She just didn't like the younger woman's attitude. Mars was far too casual, too immature. It wasn't fitting of a high-ranking member of Team Galactic. Apart from that, Mars's overenthusiastic devotion to Master Cyrus was embarrassing and irritating. There had always been a hint of silent competition between the commanders – with the exception of Charon, who was much older and a law unto himself – but Mars didn't know when to quit. Jupiter shook her head. As long as they succeeded in capturing Mesprit, I don't suppose it matters how much she makes a fool of herself.
"And we know that Saturn had no difficulty in getting the Pokémon from Lake Valor," Jupiter added with a touch of sarcasm. "He was given a bomb to clear the lake, after all, so I don't see how he could possibly have failed. We could have used that bomb to get rid of all the ice, but no matter. We managed without it."
"Commander Saturn contacted us while we were at the lake. He said that everything had gone smoothly."
"Good." Good? It's more than good. "Excellent."
After a lengthy silence, one of the Grunts at the back of the helicopter was heard to mutter, "What about the agents we left behind? Do you think they'll make it back to headquarters in time for the speech? They were snowed in pretty badly."
"Oh, I'm sure they'll think of something," Jupiter said. She didn't particularly care if they never made it off the mountainside. Their work was done.
*****
Dawn glanced over her shoulder. It was still following her, that small blue and gold creature, even though it had to jump from one spot to the next in order to get through the snow. Its fur was soaked and it was shivering; Dawn felt a stab of pity and she slowed down to let it catch up with her. When it was within her reach, she picked it up with a sigh, frowning as it licked her face excitedly.
"I don't know what you're so happy about," she murmured. "We're lost."
With Shinx in her arms, she continued down the hill, listening to the rhythmic crunch of her own footsteps. Then she heard something else. It sounded like a voice. Not wanting to be seen, Dawn ducked into the forest and crept along quietly, intending to use the trees as a hiding place if she needed to. Peering through the snow-covered branches, she found where the voices were coming from. It was a group of those strangely-dressed people from the lake. They were trying to push a black van down the hill, but it wasn't budging, even though they'd cleared most of the snow from around its wheels. In the vehicle's front seat, one of their companions was nervously leaning out of the window, looking into the wing mirror.
"Don't push too hard! The brakes might not work!"
"You can start worrying about the brakes when you start moving!"
"I don't want to start moving if I can't stop! It's alright for you three! You're not the ones who're gonna go rolling down this hill at any – hey!" The van lurched suddenly. "Okay, somebody else can drive! I feel like I'm in a death-trap here!"
"Oh, stop complaining and start revving. If we don't make it back to Veilstone City by tomorrow morning..."
Being sure to stay in the shadows of the trees, Dawn crept past them. A little further down the hill was a similar scene: another van, this one with its engine purring contentedly. Four people, all of them clad in those silvery uniforms, were standing on the other side of the vehicle's hood, one of them smoking a cigarette.
"We'll just wait until the windows clear up and the doors unfreeze and then we're good to go!"
"The doors are frozen?" Dawn heard the sound of someone tugging at one of the van's doorhandles; it pinged back with a clang. "How the heck did you get in, then?"
"Through the back. Had to climb over all the seats."
"Did you put the heaters on full?"
"Yup."
"Good. I'm turning into a block of ice." The speaker took a long drag from her cigarette. "I still don't see why the commander had to leave us here. There was plenty of room in the helicopter. You know, sometimes, the way they treat us is just..."
"Someone had to bring these back to Veilstone City," one of her companions replied, patting the van's shiny black hood.
"They could have sent someone else to fetch them later. At this rate, we'll miss all the fun!"
"We'll step on the gas once we get off this stupid mountain."
Dawn narrowed her eyes at the group, wondering what they were up to. What was so fabulous about Veilstone City, and what kind of 'fun' was going on there? As she had fled from the lake, she'd looked back just in time to see what looked like a small cage being pulled up into the helicopter. She had no idea what was happening, what was in that cage or who these people were, but the whole situation seemed darkly interesting. She backtracked a little for the sake of looking at the rear of the van. From here, she was definitely out of sight.
Dawn put down the Pokémon that she was carrying and it let out a quiet growl, concerned at what its trainer was about to do. Still, it followed her closely as she crept out from between the trees. She gazed back up the hill at the first black van that she had passed. Not only was it still stuck, but its driver had gotten out of the front seat and was in a heated argument with the others. Thinking that they were too busy to pay attention to anything going on downhill, Dawn pressed herself against one of the van's rear doors and opened the other as silently as possible. It wasn't easy to do – the hill was so steep that gravity made the metal door feel even heavier than it actually was – but she managed it.
As soon as the door was opened, Shinx sprung into the back of the van. Dawn gasped in surprise as the Pokémon darted under her arm, but she supposed that it didn't matter, as long as it kept quiet. Holding the door open with one arm, she cautiously slipped inside, knees first, catching the door with her foot to stop it from banging shut. She let it close slowly as she shuffled further into the van, but it didn't lock properly. She had to sit up and pull it a little. It made a noise and she cringed. Outside the van, everything fell silent for a moment.
"Did you hear something?"
"Probably just the engine warming up."
"You know, to say that these are state-of-the-art, they sure do creak a lot."
"You'd creak a lot if you'd been sitting in a snowdrift for a few hours. Come on, let's get going. It's steaming up in there already."
Dawn quickly looked around for something that could enable her to hide. She realised that she was lying on a heavy sheet of black canvas. She quickly scrambled underneath it, holding it aloft for Shinx to join her. They settled down just in time. Only a few seconds later, the van's doors were tugged open and the four people took their seats. Dawn felt the vehicle shifting under the extra weight, and the back seats pressing against her. She was lying directly behind them. Although it was cold outside, the heating system must have been on for a long time: it was almost suffocatingly warm under the sheet. Dawn just hoped that wherever Veilstone City was, it wouldn't take too long to get there.
As the black van shakily rumbled onto the snow-covered road, a Noctowl spread its wings and abandoned its perch in a nearby tree, taking to the sky above like a low-lying satellite.
*****
The weather had cleared up a lot and the clock on the bell-tower of Snowpoint City's temple was shining in the distance, but neither of those things made Barry feel any better. His bag felt heavier than ever before, and it wasn't just because he was carrying a few of Dawn's belongings. In his mind, he knew that he was tired and hungry; he'd barely slept or eaten since setting out from Canalave City. Twenty-four hours was a long time. But in his heart, he didn't care about sleep, nor about food. He couldn't stop thinking about Dawn. He dreaded what Professor Rowan was going to say when he found out. Would he be angry at her for going to Lake Acuity? Would he be angry at Barry for failing to protect her? And what about Johanna, Dawn's mother? Who was going to tell her that her daughter had forgotten who she was?
I'll have to tell her, Barry thought bravely. But first, he needed to phone Professor Rowan. As soon as he got to Snowpoint City, he found a café where he ravenously wolfed down some food. Then, summoning his courage, he took his phone out of his bag and dialled the number of the research centre in Sandgem Town. Lucas's father was the one who answered it. The line was fuzzy, but at least it worked.
"Barry, I'm glad to hear that you're alright. Doctor Rowan isn't here. He went back to his house with Lucas. I'll give you the number."
Barry took a pen from his bag and scribbled down the number on a napkin. As he tapped it into his phone, his hands were trembling, and his voice shook when he spoke. Although he knew that he wasn't to blame, he couldn't help but feel guilty as he told the professor the whole sorry story. He still couldn't quite believe that it had happened. Professor Rowan's silence was unnerving; Barry wished that he'd called him from a videophone so that he could at least have tried to read the man's facial expressions.
"I should have followed her myself, shouldn't I?" Barry said at last, unable to bear the lull in the conversation for any longer.
"No, you did the right thing," Professor Rowan replied, firmly but kindly. "Her Pokémon will find her, and they'll make sure that she stays safe. As for you, come back to Sandgem Town. It might be best if you fly. Do you have a Pokémon that can carry you?"
"Sure, but...what about Team Galactic?"
"They have the lake guardians now," Rowan replied. "There's nothing we can do about that. Not until we formulate a solid course of action."
"But where have they taken them?"
Professor Rowan took a sharp breath. Considering what had just happened, he didn't know why Barry was so concerned about Team Galactic. Yes, it was very worrying that they now possessed the three lake Pokémon, but there were other things to worry about. Things that were closer to home. The professor wasn't about to tell Barry where he suspected Team Galactic to be going, just in case the boy decided to rush after them on his own.
"Barry, come to Sandgem Town as quickly as you can. We'll sort this out together. I promise you, we're not about to abandon Dawn, nor those Pokémon."